I received this email from Mr. Legan a few days ago:
"I read in the DAILY JOURNAL today an obit of a teacher that I once taught with at Center Grove. Her name was Betty Hicks, taught the 6th grade. We both started at CG in 1957-58. The obit said that she died in Bloomington, IN. Some time ago former teacher at CG, Sue Morris, told me that Betty had Alzheimer's. She died at the age of 76 with a daughter, KarLisa. After her first divorce she married a CG resident, Mr. Cornelius, who passed away some years ago, and Sue told me that she had married again and moved to Texas. Then she married a Mr. Bailey. I lost track of Mrs. Hicks when i left CG and began teaching in Franklin, IN. Thought you might remember her.
Bill Legan
PS
I can't believe that it has been almost 50 years when I first began teaching, and that was at good ole CG. I will never forget those 7 years. One thing I regret is that I wished that I had bought some land in that area. I would now be a millionaire. ha."
If you've been back to our old stomping grounds and tried to stomp on the ground you once stomped on, you know that last comment is true!
GB
Dedicated to CGHS graduates, our friends, teachers and our beloved Principal, Mr. Melvin Vandermeer
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15 comments:
I'm so sorry to hear about Mrs. Hicks. I didn't know her well but she was a respected and well like teacher.
GB, does Mr. Legan know what happened to Mr. Hillenberg? He was my 6th grade teacher one of the all time best!
Thanks for the update
I remember Mrs Betty Hicks very well, she was my 6th grade teacher and I really liked her. We were in that old bldg. that was between the HS and the elementary. The cafeteria was in the basement of that bldg. and everyday my mouth would start watering about 10:00am because I could smell the food cooking below.
Mrs. Hicks was a great teacher and it's sad to hear of her passing.
Sorry to hear about Mrs. Hicks. Our 6th grade year was my first year at CG, and I loved that old brick building. I can still smell the floor cleaner that Old Alvie (remember him...the janitor?) used on the floors. And Joker has the same memory that I do of the wonderful smells from that basement cafeteria...Yummy!
I was also in Mr. Hillenberg's class and vividly remember how all the teachers would hang out in the halls and "carry on"...ha! It's so funny to think of them now. Of course, while the teachers were "carrying on" in the hall, we were "carrying on" in the class room!
Remember "passing notes" in class? Oh what fun we all had...except for tether ball! I remember getting that thing on the playground and trying to hit that ball...I was terrible at tether ball...hated it! But loved playing softball out there. Ah what great memories!!
hi flygirl,
Alvie Surface, the janitor, was my grandfather and I didn't remember the smell of the floor cleaner until you mentioned it. It was a strong smell, too, as I remember. This is great that each of us remembers a little piece of our past that triggers more memories that we can put together.
I also remember the 6th grade teachers "carrying on" in the hall. They did that a lot! hmmmm I loved tether ball and was fairly good at it, I wasn't too good at softball.
First of all, I am sorry to hear about Mrs. Hicks. Did not know her well and never had her as a teacher, but, I know that she was well liked by those who knew her.
To comment further on others' comments - I remember that not all of the Teachers hung out in the hall and carried on. Seems that some may have hung out in the cloak room and carried on. Do any of you remember those stories? Or is my memory going too? Were these just half baked rumors? OR as we were passing notes in the Classrooms - were the Teachers passing notes in the Hallways????
Two Dogs, yes I rememeber those rumors, especially about Mrs Hicks. Hate to talk ill of the deceased and I did like her, but there were rumors about her and a certain teacher (Mr Cornelius?) and she did spend a lot of time in the cloak room. Even back then we all thought she was "hot to trot" although I don't think we knew that term yet.
Oh Yeah! The cloak room incidents! I also don't want to speak ill of the past...but! Mrs. H did have a bit of a reputation as a "hot number". Maybe that was because she was always laughing with the other male teachers in that old brick building. Oh if that brick building could talk...sizzle & pop! Great memories for us all! Who was the older male teacher...??? He never seemed to be out in the hall "carrying on". Jackie B. was in his class...Mr. Engle-something?? My mind is fading....
FG
That would be Mr. Engleman, he got into trouble one day for groping, too bad I was too young to figure out what groping was. There was this huge deal that went on. I remember everyone rushing around investigating him.
That building held so many great memories.
I too, had Mr. Hillenberg and loved him. I remember him instigating us getting out early on Fridays to play some kind of game or sports with the other rooms. He was a hero. He started us on volleyball and tether ball, and track relays.
Remember the Wednesday Donuts that Ruth Anne used to bring in from Saps? Her dad worked there.
The smells from the cafeteria, the new wax on the floors at school beginning.
The noisey heaters in the rooms and the windows so high you had to use the pole to reach them. It was either roasting or freezing, but we didn't care.
That wonderful old merry go round that you had to pump.
Playing marbles and jacks on the shiney floors. All before we found out it was illegal to gamble like that.
Squirt guns taken away if we weren't quick enought to hide them.
Sitting in the middle row of seats, so you could hide behind the student in front of you so we could sleep.
The desks with the previous years students name or initials on them that made it hard to write on them sometimes.
The end of the school year picnic in the woods?
Getting to go to the high school library one day a week.
The weekly relays at the black boards. We actually could do math on them, unlike todays kids. Playing Tap Tap Fairey Tap or Doggie Doggie whose got the bone?
Actually getting to say the Pledge of Allegience.
Hanging our wet snowy coats in the coatrooms. Boots underneath and puddles of water everywhere. Oh, those poor janitors.
The cricking doors on the bathrooms stalls. The certain smell, not bad, just different, but I would recognize it in a heartbeat.
I was actually lucky enough to have gotten to spend 4th and 5th and 6th grade in the old building.
Too bad todays kids have missed it all.
Right GH, Mr. Engleman and the Groping Incident! I remember him as being pasty and grey-looking with very little hair and flabby...typical perv! UGH!
GH, are you a member of the Rocky Scheinbein Fan Club? PT and I are charter members. He was so cute with that lisp! And he would spit a bit when he talked...ha!
Oh yeah, Ruth Ann and the donuts! I always envied her; she had breasts in the 6th grade, and I weighed about 60 lbs and looked like a little boy. She was very sophisticated in the 6th grade and her donuts were delicious! Ha!
And Mr. Gray(sp) was the 7th or 8th grade math teacher that drank and groped. We had classes in the old brick building in 7th & 8th grades, right? That's where I remember have math class with him.
Did anyone else go to the brick build for some sort of "increase your reading speed" class? We would sit in little partitioned cubicles with a light machine that ran down the page of a book. The teacher would speed up that light and we were suppose to keep up with the it. I always fell asleep...ha! That class trained me to fall asleep while reading, and to this day I suffer from "speed sleeping" when reading. It's amazing what we learned back then. Right,too bad today's kids miss this!
I wish that I'd been better at tether ball like Joker! I just kept getting hit in the head by that speeding ball as it wrapped around that pole. But it was fun and I loved that pump merry-go-round, Whee!
Thanks for more memories GH!
FG
For the main question, oh yeah, I was in the I love Rocky group also, but PT had that position filled for the year. I remember they were ga ga over each other.
You are so welcome. It is amazing what can come back to you after so many years.
Awww, Mr. Gray, that was one time our great school system let us down. A active alcoholic teaching us. He had his "coffee" thermos in his desk, and one day, I remember he was unhappy with our class test results and he whacked all the girls and gave the guys a F for the day. Thank goodness for petticoats back then. He was always whacking on the guys for little things.
Yes, when I was a Sophomore had to take developemental reading in the middle building. Which amazed me that all of a sudden we had to have this last 1/2 credit to graduate and I could already read several hundred words a minute. Great sleeptime though.
And that Mr. Engleman thing was pretty tramatic for the 6th grade, since we didn't have a clue as to what was really going on. That poor girl, Carol somebody. She had boobs and like you, I didn't have any for many many years. Heck when we weigh 60 lbs, boobs is not even on the list yet. LOL.
I loved tether ball, but I had a hard time beating Carol, she was one mean player back then. She let me win once in awhile.
Do you remember the skills test we had to do in gym class in high school with Mrs. Davis? One year we had to serve a volleyball across the net into these little 12" squares. I hit all three of them. Then we had to take the rules test for each sport. There is a whole other chapter to the story with Mrs. Davis and me. I will have to tell you at a later date.
I was TERRIFIED of Mr. Gray. I remember in our class he drew a small circle on the blackboard, up high so a person had to stand on their tiptoes to reach it and he made them put their nose in the circle and stay their until class was over....someone should have worked him over a few times. It seemed every day brought a new way to torture us. How on earth did he get by with that?
BMG
You are so right, I remember the circle on the board now that you mention it.
Back then we had no idea that we could voice our concerns and actually be heard.
That was one scarey dude.
Mr.Gray got his just rewards after awhile. He soon was found out after poor students were given unjust things to do while in his class. The higherups fired him during the middle of the school year. I felt sorry for the students that had him. I always wondered what happened to him?????
In Mr. Gray's later years he bounced around various IPS schools. He seemed to remember a lot of the students he had at CG. He was always asking about former CG students and had nothing but positive things to say about them. He was not proud of his questionable style of discipline, but it was never his intent to harm or hurt anyone, just get their attention.That was the way he was brought up. He had health issues, but I was not aware that he had been fired at CG.
I wish they would have fired him during our year of suffering. I would have stood on my desk and done the Boog-A-Loo!
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